Psychology Wiki:How to edit a page
Editing is Easy * This page is a complete guide to the technical side of editing. * It covers some of the same information already dealt with in the Beginners Tutorial and the Beginners Guide to Editing (below). * It also explains how to use the Wikitext language for editing (which is really quite simple and easy to learn). * This page starts with the basics, and gradually covers more and more complex aspects of editing. * By the time you know all the things on this page, you can consider yourself and Experienced editor. See Also: Editing an article at the Psychology Wiki is simple. With practice, you will be able to confidently and efficiently edit articles, a great contribution to the Psychology Wiki. A place to practice editing is the Sandbox * To begin, simply click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of the page. This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the original page. If you just want to experiment, please do so in the sandbox, not here. * After making the desired changes, it is best to write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. The purpose of this is to politely inform other editors of the changes you made. If you simply added a comma or a period, however, you may simply check the "Minor Edit" box. Please DO NOT check this box if what you changed will greatly affect the meaning of the article. When in doubt, write a summary. * After writing your summary, press the "Show Preview"button to see how your changes will look. You can also see the difference between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page by pressing the "Show Changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, press the "Save page" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to other users. Congrats! You just made your first edit! Thanks for contributing to the Psychology Wiki! *You can also click on the "Discussion" tab to see the corresponding talk page which contains comments about the page from other users. It is also a good idea to check the talk page before editing an article. Doing so will give you an idea of the page's history. Some articles, for example, have lots of dialogue concerning their layout, etc. You don't want to be the kind of editor that barges in and changes what people just spent weeks to plan! Note: Please sign all posts on talk pages by writing four tildas after your post. This will inform all who read what you wrote of whom you are, and when you made the post. Please do not sign what you write in the edit box. Tips on editing Psychology Wiki articles Always use a neutral point of view (NPOV) * When there are conflicting views on an article, it is especially important to write it fairly. * Debates are described and characterized, but not engaged in. (Please see the Debating Chamber if this is your cup of tea.) * NPOV requires views to be represented without bias. * The Psychology Wiki is NOT a place to advertise or promote a certain point of view. Let the facts speak for themselves! Cite your references properly * Unlike Wikipedia, which does ask for all sources to be cited, at the Psychology Wiki this is even more important. * ALL information which is added to the Psychology Wiki must cite proper academic references * The referencing standard for the Psychology Wiki is the American Psychological Association (APA) standard formatting style. * We reference so that others can check and extend our work. Many articles currently lack good references. * Please help by researching online and print resources to find references for the article you are working on, then cite them in proper form, and consider in-text citation for contentious facts. Link to your article from other articles * After making a new page, it's a good idea to use the "What links here" feature to check the pages that already link to your new page. Make sure that all the links are referring to your page in the right context. * For example, a link to the APA in terms of correct formating should direct readers to "APA_style" rather than "APA (organisation)". You should also use the search feature to find occurrences of the title of your new page—and possible variants thereof—so that you can create appropriate links. Minor edits When editing a page, a logged-in user can mark that edit as being "minor". Minor edits generally mean spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearrangement of text. Marking a significant change as a minor edit is considered bad behavior, especially when it involves the deletion of some text. If you accidentally mark an edit as minor, you should edit the source once more, mark it major (or, rather, ensure that the check-box for "This is a minor edit" is not checked), and, in the summary, state that the previous change was a major one. Wiki markup "Wiki markup" is the syntax system you can use to format a Psychology Wiki page. In the left column of the table below, you can see what effects are possible. In the right column, you can see how those effects were achieved. In other words, to make text look like it looks in the left column, type it in the format you see in the right column. You may want to keep this page open in a separate browser window for reference. If you want to try out things without danger of doing any harm, you can do so in the Sandbox. Try opening the Sandbox in a separate window or tab and keeping this page open for reference. Examples Links and URLs Images Only images that have been uploaded to Wikipedia can be used. To upload images, use the . You can find the uploaded image on the . |} See the Wikipedia's image use policy as a guideline used on Wikipedia. For further help on images, including some more versatile abilities, see the topic on Extended image syntax. Character formatting (see also: Chess symbols in Unicode) Table of Contents At the current status of the wiki markup language, having at least four headers on a page triggers the TOC to appear in front of the first header (or after introductory sections). Putting __TOC__ anywhere forces the TOC to appear at that point (instead of just before the first header). Putting anywhere forces the TOC to disappear. See also compact TOC for alphabet and year headings. Tables There are two ways to build tables: *in special Wiki-markup (see ) *with the usual HTML elements: , , or . For the latter, and a discussion on when tables are appropriate, see Wikipedia:How to use tables. Variables (See also ) NUMBEROFARTICLES is the number of pages in the main namespace which contain a link and are not a redirect, in other words number of articles, stubs containing a link, and disambiguation pages. CURRENTMONTHNAMEGEN is the genitive (possessive) grammatical form of the month name, as used in some languages; CURRENTMONTHNAME is the nominative (subject) form, as usually seen in English. In languages where it makes a difference, you can use constructs like to convert a word from the nominative case to some other case. For example, }} means the same as . Templates The MediaWiki software used by Wikipedia has support for templates. This means standardized text chunks (such as boilerplate text) can be inserted into articles. For example, typing will appear as "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." when the page is saved. See Wikipedia:Template messages for the complete list. Other commonly used templates are: for disambiguation pages, for spoiler warnings and like an article stub but for a section. There are many subject-specific stubs for example: , , and . For a complete list of stubs see WP:WSS/ST. Hiding the edit links Insert __NOEDITSECTION__ into the document to suppress the edit links that appear next to every section header. More information on editing wiki pages You may also want to learn about: * * Informal tips on contributing to Wikipedia * Editing tasks in general at the Wikipedia:Editing FAQ * Rename pages boldly, at Wikipedia:How to rename (move) a page * Preferred layout of your article, at Guide to layout (see also Wikipedia:Boilerplate text) * Style conventions in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style * An article with annotations pointing out common Wikipedia style and layout issues, at Wikipedia:Annotated article * General policies in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines * Wikipedia:Naming conventions for how to name articles themselves * Help on editing very large articles * If you are making an article about something that belongs to a group of objects (a city, an astronomical object, a Chinese character...) check if there is a WikiProject on the group and try to follow its directions explicitly. * *Mediawiki user's guide to editing *Wikipedia:MediaWiki * Finally, for a list of articles about editing Wikipedia consult Wikipedia:Style and How-to Directory. 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